SDG #13 is to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”
Within SDG #13 are 5 targets, of which we here focus on Target 13.2:
Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning
Target 13.2 has two indicators:
Indicator 13.2.1: Number of countries with nationally determined contributions, long-term strategies, national adaptation plans and adaptation communications, as reported to the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Indicator 13.2.2: Total greenhouse gas emissions per year
The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the framework of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the latter adopted in 1992. The UNFCCC has 198 parties, of which 195 have ratified the Paris Agreement.
The UNFCCC Secretariat register the nationally determined contributions mentioned in the first indicator. You can view these submissions online to check each country’s progress. All parties to the Paris Agreement have so far provided a first NDC. As of 2023, only 17 of the parties had submitted a second NDC.
The UNFCCC calls on parties to keep inventory of their domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Each greenhouse gas has a different potential for global warming. Nitrogen trifluoride has a global warming potential 17,200 times greater than carbon dioxide over the span of a century. But each greenhouse gas stays in the atmosphere for different lengths also. The concentration of carbon dioxide emitted by humans to the atmosphere far exceeds other greenhouse gases.
The country with the largest greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 was China, emitting 14 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent. The US emitted 6 billion tonnes in the same year and India 4 billion, keeping in mind India and China have populations exceeding the US by a billion each.
Since 2015, the year of the adoption of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement, global emissions have remained about the same through to 2022. For each year since, the world has emitted 53 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
